


One Way Out

by nialleritdidnthappen



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Disasters, First Aid, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nurse Niall, Stitches, Superhero Harry, Vigilante Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 16:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11108406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nialleritdidnthappen/pseuds/nialleritdidnthappen
Summary: Niall was almost surprised that anxiety hadn’t gripped him the moment he got home, that he wasn’t sitting vigilant by the phone, willing on sheer, idiotic hope for the burner number to pop up. The physical demands of the night had taken their toll, so much so that he simply focused on breathing deeply, every exhale clearing his lungs as well as his mind, emptying it of everything but the silent mantra: All you can do is wait.





	One Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Night Nurse/Claire Temple character and her relationship with Matt Murdock/Daredevil. I've always appreciated both the compassion they have for each other and the complexity of their relationship, and how there is every reason in the world for them not to be together, and yet, they feel inextricably connected. Hope I do that arc justice. Please do leave a comment! They are always appreciated and I try to never let one go unanswered :)

It was well past three in the morning by the time Niall dragged himself up to his apartment, slumping against the door as it clicked shut behind him, not even bothering to reach for the light switch as he dropped his backpack to the floor. He hung his head and closed his eyes there in the dark, promising himself he’d move after five seconds. Ten seconds. Twenty. Okay, maybe thirty. Okay, maybe a minute. 

His back ached, his limbs were heavy and his eyelids even more so, drooping closed behind glasses that had slipped right down to the tip of nose, aided by a thin layer of sweat that had formed all down the flushed skin of his face the moment he had left the hospital and stepped out into the city streets, sticky with humidity in the air and puddles all along the sidewalks. 

Despite his exhaustion and the fact that he could very well have fallen asleep right there, leaning against the door of the apartment, he pushed himself forward and reached for the hem of his scrubs, peeling the pale green shirt off his sweaty torso and yanking it over his head. As he freed his arms from the fabric, he began nudging off his shoes one after the other, not realizing how vehemently his feet had been screaming for release until they were completely bare against the cold ceramic tile of his entryway.

His pants were quick to follow, and when he had finally shed every layer he scooped dirty scrubs, socks and shoes into his arms and walked blindly through the dark and into his bedroom, every step slow and wince-inducing after the mayhem of the shift he thought would never end.

-

A six-vehicle pile-up that included two cabs, one 18-wheeler, a compact car, an SUV and a bus full of civilians. Teens. Elderly. Mothers and babies and all of them thrown like rag dolls against glass windows and metal poles as the cars collided in the midst of, of all things, a fist fight in the middle of Times Square. But of course, it was not your run-of-the-mill, everyday fist fight.

Explanation only amplified the absurdity of it all, as Niall discovered when Liam had broken rank from his fellow NYPD officers and pushed his way through the chaos in the Emergency Wing, pulling Niall aside to let him know what the hell had actually happened as an avalanche of admissions flooded the hospital.

“Your man in the mask tried to stop it,” he’d said, leaning in close so that no one would hear, though there was no chance of that anyway among the oppressive barrage of nurses and doctors yelling for backup, children crying, mothers wailing, police officers barking into radios and sirens blaring from outside, heralding the endless onslaught of ambulances to come that night.

Niall tried hard to keep his eyes focused and his expression calm as he helped patient after patient onto stretchers, hands quick and efficient but gentle as he directed each admission with diligent precision, but Liam’s words ignited a flame of fear in his chest that caused his throat to swell uncomfortably.

“Tried?” he asked, shooting a quick glance over his shoulder to where Liam stood, still hovering close to Niall’s ear.

“It was… it was unlike anything I’d ever seen, Ni. Every blow they landed on each other was like… was like a crash of thunder, or, or an earthquake shaking the ground, tearing up the concrete where they stood from beneath. Lightning from their hands, surges of electricity from the lights and signs sending these… these shockwaves through the air… they’re… they’re not from this world.”

Niall could hear the disbelief in Liam’s voice, mixed with resignation that this kind of crime, this kind of disaster, was the new normal. “And he tried,” Liam continued, “he tried to stop them, but… but…”

Digesting Liam’s words was making Niall feel sicker by the second, but he didn’t let his eyes falter as he reassured the weeping parents of the unconscious child he’d strapped to the stretcher in front of him, a caring hand on the mother’s arm as he instructed the father to follow the nurse to the OR. As they scurried away, there was a miraculous if brief lull in the tidal wave of patients where he turned to Liam directly, eyes finally betraying him as he asked, “But _what_?" 

Liam’s forehead was creased with concern. “He’s hurt. He’s hurt real bad, that is… that is if he even made it out alive.”  

“ _Christ_ ,” Niall hissed, bringing a hand to cover the sob that threatened his lips, but composing himself just in time. He couldn’t. Not here. Not in uniform. Not with a name badge declaring “RN” to the victims of this terror pinned to his breast pocket. “Has anyone found a—”

“No, no sign of him, no body, nothing, but there’s a massive amount of wreckage out there and who knows what the morning will turn up. But I saw him try, Niall, I saw him fight, and if I ever doubted his loyalties in the past, well… I don’t anymore. And I know it might not matter now, but I want you to know that. And if the worst should happen…” he quickly placed a firm hand on Niall’s shoulder, knowing there wasn’t much time before Niall and his steady hands would be desperately needed again, “I’m sorry.”

A gruff voice above the chaos pulled Liam’s comforting hand from Niall’s shoulder and his gaze away from Niall’s eyes, calling, “Payne! Chief is calling for backup at the site, I’m sending you in!”

“Yessir!” Liam called over his shoulder, leaving him with a somber look and a nod of the head just as an elderly man with a gruesome gash down his cheek was ushered into Niall’s care. Niall swallowed down the fear, pushed it deep into his gut where it couldn’t pull him away from the people who needed him. It would catch up to him later, he knew, when he was alone in the night and his heart would ache with cruel uncertainty and his mind would concoct horrifying images of what had happened, of how it all ended, of _whether_ it ended or if it was a painful, drawn out torture still in progress, the slow drain of blood from unpatched wounds a literal manifestation of life seeping one drop at a time from a man he barely knew but felt inextricably connected to…

But not now. Now, he would patch those wounds on anyone and everyone who found their way into his arms. 

-

It had been a long night. The longest night.

Niall was almost surprised that anxiety hadn’t gripped him the moment he got home, that he wasn’t sitting vigilant by the phone, willing on sheer, idiotic hope for the burner number to pop up. The physical demands of the night had taken their toll, so much so that he simply focused on breathing deeply as he tossed grimy scrubs into the hamper and dropped wet sneakers in the dark closet, every exhale clearing his lungs as well as his mind, attempting to empty it of everything but the silent mantra, _All you can do is wait. All you can do is wait._  

It wasn’t cold in the apartment, just comfortably temperate with the AC working to offset the muggy summer air outside. Even so, Niall shivered there in the dark, a twinge of uneasiness in his belly when he set his glasses on the bedside table and slipped out of his boxers. He peeked back into the kitchen and sitting room, something akin to paranoia nagging at his nervous system. It was so quiet. But the apartment was always quiet, especially at times like this when he got home in the middle of the night, all of his neighbors tucked away in their beds and most cars gone from the roads of his side street neighborhood. For whatever reason, though, the quiet unnerved him tonight. 

Nothing out of the ordinary in the living room, the kitchen, the entryway. Everything exactly has he had left it, just more visible now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the apartment’s only illumination a faint amber glow from the fog lights on his fire escape, accented by the occasional white flash of a car bumbling by down below, wet tires splashing along puddled streets.

Niall padded carefully to the door and threw the deadbolt and chain before fishing his phone from his backpack. He made his way back into the bedroom and then into the adjoining bathroom where he flipped the switch on the wall, illuminating frosted bulbs above the mirror. He unmuted the device, and made sure the volume was turned to its highest possible setting before setting it on the porcelain sink and starting up a shower.

He propped himself with hands against the tile under the showerhead at first, holding still with closed eyes under the spray of cool water as it soaked through his hair and ran the length of him. Hanging his head, he let his eyes open again and watched the water swirl down the drain, discolored at first and carrying flecks of dirt kicked up in the wreckage that clung to patients and their hair and their clothes and then to him as he ushered them through the ER and OR until every bed in the building was full.

As he stood there under the spray, breathing deep, finally beginning to massage shampoo into his hair, the water gradually went from dusty brown to crystal clear, save for the frothy bouts of bubbles as he scrubbed himself from head to toe.

Sometimes he felt like he could measure his life in showers. In the number of times per day he felt the need to scrub himself of all of the people he’d met and all the disaster he’d seen. In the number of times his body felt beaten, battered, abused by no one but himself, out of an insatiable urge to preserve as many lives as possible. 

Niall usually commits to short showers, environmental awareness and whatnot, plus with his wacked out work schedule and sleeping pattern he is usually pressed for time so long showers aren’t really an option, but he deliberately lost track of the minutes this time around. He probably scrubbed and rinsed and repeated for close to half an hour, but he didn’t have the energy to care tonight. Shutting off the water, Niall pushed back the curtain and grabbed a towel that hadn’t been through the wash in far too long, patting himself dry before tucking the tattered old thing around his waist.

In slow strokes he cleared fog from the mirror to reveal dull blue eyes shadowed in dark circles staring back him. This seemed to have become his natural state — exhausted, showering for second or third time in one day to wash away dirt and sweat and stress, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. It was his own fault, he knew. He worked too hard and sure, he slept, but just barely enough. There was a reason for almost all of this, though, and that reason might not exist come daylight, which terrified Niall, wrapped him in a prickly layer of anxiety that was worse than any level of exhaustion he’d experienced in the last few months. 

The silence of the apartment – which was just beginning to feel normal again – was shattered when a _BANG_ like some heavy object being slammed against dry wall chilled Niall to the bone and made his entire body spasm in shock and his head snap toward the bathroom door.

Then, silence. Wicked silence that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end while goosebumps erupted all up and down his arms. Niall’s tongue felt too big in his mouth, and his legs suddenly felt like they were made of clay, holding him up but just barely.

A bang, then silence. Niall’s head swam with images, every possible explanation as to what it could mean. His heart thrummed quick in his chest and echoed in his ears while he stared, frozen, at the closed bathroom door. 

A forced entry, then a standstill. A figure all dressed in black sitting at his kitchen table, awaiting Niall’s exit from the back room with a gun positioned to take him down the moment he set foot through the doorway. 

Or, a forced entry, the same dark figure deciding not to sit and wait for his prey to walk ignorantly into a trap, but instead journeying silently across the living room, into the bedroom, right to the bathroom door under which the light could so easily be seen, then reaching for the knob and bursting in to clutch Niall’s throat in gloved hands before he could scream for help…

His body took action without conscious thought, scrambling to the sink and snatching a blunt pair of scissors that were hardly effective at removing hangnails or cleaning up his shaggy blonde hair, let alone taking down a potential axe murderer, but it was all he had and he was now running completely on autopilot.

He moved toward the door, heartbeat still pounding in his ears, terrified that maybe it was drowning out any sounds the intruder might be making to alert Niall of his whereabouts or intentions. But even if he did have some sense of who it was or what they had come to do, he had nowhere to go but backwards into a windowless bathroom nestled in the center of the apartment, no entry or exit through which to escape, except the one right in front of him.

Pathetic excuse for a weapon at the ready, he wrapped his fingers around the old glass doorknob, clinging to memories of a concerned, compassionate voice and steady, guiding hands showing him how to defend himself if, God forbid, anyone were to try and harm him. _Go for the eyes first. Scratch, claw, stab, anything. Then nose. Then ears. Neck, groin, knees. Don’t let them get control of you. Never let them get control._

_Move. Now._

Niall flung open the door and burst into the bedroom, smacking the light switch to illuminate the dark then turning in a 360 only to see nothing but bed, closet, dresser, mirror, dirty clothes in the hamper exactly as he’d left them, then started a bolt toward the living room ready to light it up and claw out the eyes of the first thing with eyes he saw, when a shrill alarm echoed out in the bathroom causing him to change direction in a panic, expecting to cut through flesh when he whipped around and sliced scissors through nothing but empty air, the high-pitched ringing still piercing its way through the heartbeat in his ears when it finally hit him. _Phone. Bathroom._

He moved quickly to the bathroom, walking backwards with sharp eyes set on the open doorway to the dark living room, scissors brandished in front of him, spare hand feeling its way along wall and doorway and porcelain sink before finding the phone and holding it up in shaking hands. Niall’s chest tightens in shock and confusion and something like relief when he immediately recognized the number and swiped to answer, lifting the phone to pounding ears and trembling lips and breathing out in a hoarse whisper, “Harry, _Harry!_ What, where— someone’s here— _I’m trapped…”_

A wet, sputtering cough, and Harry managed to choke, _“Fire escape.”_

Niall almost cried when realization dawned, felt a sob bubble up from his stomach but pushed it down as he tossed the scissors and his phone aside and bolted headfirst into the dark living room, a completely different kind of fear gripping his heart now. He made for the window without hesitation, and sure enough, there was a figure, dressed in black from head-to-toe, curled in on himself by the glass, patches of deep red glimmering in the fog light on neck, chest, shoulders, and hands. 

Clearing the window sill of picture frames and trinkets and unlatching the locks, Niall’s breathing leveled out and his hands ceased their shaking, and it made no sense that the sight of blood and injury caused such mental and physical collectedness within him, ignited a flame of trust in himself and his abilities bright enough to chase away the darkness surrounding the situation at hand.

Sure enough, by the time he had opened the window and slung one of Harry’s limp arms over his shoulders, hoisting him inside, every bit of uncertainty had drained from his body. He knew exactly what he needed to do, and his hands were already one step ahead.

He eased Harry down to the floor to lie on his back, offering a comforting litany of “I’ve got you, I’ve _got_ you… You’re safe… you’re _safe_ ,” in response to the strangled sobs slipping without control from Harry’s lips. Once he was flat on the ground, Niall pulled off the mask obscuring his face from the world, and his heart ached at the sight of it, completely devoid of its usual fiery, reckless charm, now twisted with pain and fear and guilt as he met Niall’s eyes.

“Niall… I’m… I… I _tried…”_

Niall cupped a hand over Harry’s filthy, bloodstained cheek and shushed him gently, thumbing away a tear or a bead of sweat from his matted curls, he wasn’t sure which. 

“Keep quiet, now… just breathe.” He soothed a hand through Harry’s curls then cupped his cheek again. “Need you to keep breathing, can you do that for me?”

Harry nodded, placing a quivering hand over Niall’s.

“I’ll be fifteen seconds,” Niall said, and he picked himself up and started for the bedroom.

He unhooked the towel from his waist and tossed it to the bed, then pulled on boxers and a t-shirt, snatched up his glasses from the nightstand, his emergency bag from the corner, bath towels from the linen closet in the hallway, and skidded right back to Harry’s side, where he lay wincing in pain with every shuddering breath.

Niall clicked on the end table lamp to give himself some light to work with before he unzipped his bag and spread out its many hidden pouches, folds and compartments, pushed his glasses high on the bridge of his nose, snapped on a pair of latex gloves and took Harry’s head in his hands, gently pressing his fingers into damp hair, checking for any sign of a serious injury to the head. First at the nape of his neck and then moving up, behind his ears, then to the crown of his head, up the top and around the sides to his temples.

“This is gonna be a bit bright, okay?” Niall said, unzipping one of the inner compartments of the bag and extracting a penlight.

Whether or not Harry was actually processing anything he was saying remained to be seen, but he gave a low grunt, which Niall took as an affirmative. He leaned in and tugged gently at the top of Harry’s right eyelid with the pad of his thumb to check pupil dilation, revealing a glazed eye, pain and disorientation swimming in the endless green.

He clicked on the light and Harry winced, eyelid fighting against Niall’s thumb on instinct, but Niall just reassured him quietly, and moved on to his left eye quickly for the same treatment, before clicking off the light and moving steady hands to Harry’s torso.

“Where are you hurt, Harry?” Niall asked, willing Harry stay conscious long enough to give him any information that might help Niall treat him as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Ribs,” Harry’s voice cracked through strenuous pants, “Definitely ribs. And s-s-some type of puncture… here…” his shaking hands trailed down to his right flank, where the blood was pooling prominently against his shirt, and into the towel Niall had slid beneath him.

Niall sprang to action. One gloved hand a solid, grounding presence on Harry’s sternum, the other pulling a pair of scissors from the kit and slicing open Harry’s skin-tight black top, some ridiculous athletic thing that Niall had told him _weeks_ ago needed to be thrown out or traded in for something that would actually protect his body when he threw himself thoughtlessly into street brawls with vicious criminals, let alone whatever monstrous maybe-humans-maybe-not had paid the city a visit tonight.  

Harry managed to lift himself a bit to let Niall extricate him from the remnants of the fabric, then slumped back to the floor, eyes rolling in his head which prompted Niall to grip his shoulder and speak, loud and firm, “Hey, hey, you gotta stay with me, okay? Gotta stay with me…”

There were cuts, tender and red and of varying lengths, scattered from waistline to shoulders, some that were partially obscured among the black ink that adorned Harry’s lean but muscular frame, and some were so long and ghastly that his tattoos were obscured by _them._  

“’M dizzy…”

“’Cos you’re losing blood, we gotta take care of this puncture… Jesus _fucking…_ ” 

The wound on his flank was deep, Niall could tell by the numerous folds of torn skin that curled up and around the entry point, slippery with blood and purple in their creases from coagulation. The majority of the blood loss was happening right here, the smaller cuts could wait. But it was bad. Really, really bad. _No hospitals,_ Harry’s voice from weeks ago echoed in his head, and he knew that he could beg for the rest of the morning for Harry to let him call an ambulance, and it would be a complete waste of time.

As gently as possible, he gripped the skin surrounding the wound and pulled it taut to get a better look, causing Harry to let out a muffled cry into the back of his hand.

“I know, I’m sorry, sorry…” Niall pulled out the necessary tools to disinfect the wound.

“Call me crazy, but I don’t think this was made by a knife,” Niall said, knowing that if he had any chance of keeping Harry awake, he’d have to keep him talking, keep the cogs turning in his head.

“You’d be right,” he said through gritted teeth as alcohol burned through some of the already congealed blood, stinging at the exposed folds of skin where Niall dabbed with antiseptic wipes. “But would you believe me if I told you it was made by a fucking alien who poked me one too many times with his magic wand?”

“Would you be telling the truth if you said that?” Niall quipped, not sure if he should be relieved or concerned that Harry was trying to be funny while simultaneously bleeding out on Niall’s floor, but now that they had settled into the safety blanket of Niall’s home, slipped back into something close to regular conversation, Niall was beginning to feel intense emotional relief simmering deep inside him. Every gentle pad against Harry’s skin, however tattered and torn it might have been, was a reminder that he was _here,_ and he was _alive._ Niall hadn’t lost him yet, and it took every bit of composure he had not to let the feeling completely overwhelm him into a teary-eyed mess. Harry was enough of a mess for both of them right now, he reasoned, and he had a job to do.

“More or less… ah!”

“Sorry,” Niall hissed, pressing a grounding hand to Harry’s abdomen.

To his surprise, Harry laughed. “Don’t apologize… I’m the one who should be sorry, not you.”

Niall knew Harry was trying to catch his eye, but he averted his gaze. Placed a clean absorbent towel in Harry’s hand and guided said hand to the wound, showing him where to apply pressure while he focused on preparing a needle driver and forceps.

“For what? Scaring me half to death, or for using up all my first aid?”

He made sure to add a lilt of good-humored sarcasm, but his heart sank when Harry didn’t seem amused. Niall cleared his throat and continued threading the needle driver in preparation to suture the wound when Harry’s spare hand stopped him, wrapped itself around his palm. Niall swallowed hard, and looked back into somber green eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, barely a whisper as he gripped Niall’s hand with what little strength he had left. “I can’t think of any way I can possibly repay you for everything you’ve done for me these past few months… everything you risk just by knowing me… and then I go off and ‘scare you half to death’ like that and that’s… that’s not fair. It’s… despicable… quite frankly…” Harry squeezed his eyes shut, maybe in reaction to the pain, maybe to hold back some emotion he didn’t want Niall to see.

“Stop.” Niall gripped his hand back, stared down at him until he opened his eyes. Watery eyes that looked sorry in three different shades of green all at once. “If I didn’t want to do this anymore… well, then I wouldn’t be doing it anymore,” Niall said, unwavering. “It’s my choice. You haven’t forced me to do anything, and you don’t owe me any kind of apology. Okay?”

Harry didn’t look convinced, but he nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

“Now, priority number one is making sure you don’t bleed to death on my floor,” Niall smirked ruefully, glad to see Harry’s shoulders shake the tiniest bit with silent laughter. “We can argue more about… _that…_ ” he gestured noncommittally, “… later, along with when you’re gonna reimburse me for Ace bandages, okay?”

Harry heaved a sigh, and winced in pain when he did, adjusting the towel a bit, finding it in him to offer a small smile. “Okay.”

To get a clean suture, he needed more room to work, needed to expose the wound fully. Which, unfortunately for Harry, meant shifting positions. Niall slipped a hand under Harry’s back and nudged him to turn on his side, which Harry accomplished at a glacial pace thanks to supportive hands and reassuring whispers from Niall. Niall was certain that every movement was sending jolts of searing pain through his body, particularly with the broken ribs he had surely sustained, but it had to be done. Once in position, Niall lifted Harry’s hand from the wound and discarded the absorbent towel, which was thoroughly soaked.

Needle driver at the ready, Niall rubbed Harry’s shoulder comfortingly and cautioned, “I can make quick work of this, but you’ve gotta keep still for me, yeah?”

“Yeah— _fuck!”_

Before Harry could even finish his answer Niall was sewing the first stitch, and Harry’s body tensed from the pain, but he managed to keep still for Niall. Niall, in an almost comical effort to keep Harry’s mind off the needle and thread securing his skin back together, began chatting mindlessly to Harry about football and the weather and how he recently changed laundry detergents and how he hadn’t eaten since four in the afternoon, until he tied off the thread and bandaged him up.

There wasn’t much Niall could do about the broken ribs except guide Harry with gentle hands any time he had to move, but the rest of the gashes and cuts that painted his body Niall took care of one by one, cleaning up dirt and dust and dried blood along the way.

When they’d finally finished, Harry was a mass of white gauze and stitches, cleaned head to toe and freed from his bloodied clothes which Niall had considered tossing with the rest of the torn shirt, blood-stained rags and soiled towels, but opted to seal them up in their own trash bag instead, in case Harry was fool enough to try and wash them. He wondered vaguely if it was hard to find all the pieces for a perfect vigilante costume, even one as pathetic as Harry’s.

Niall had to shut down two more attempts on Harry’s part to apologize, analyze, beat the topic of their relationship and what it had become and what it meant to death, partially because he didn’t think it smart to discuss such things when their emotions were already heightened, and partially because he was too goddamn tired to worry about any of that tonight. Harry eventually complied, thanks to the lure of warm blankets and a soft pillow on a towel-covered couch.

Once he’d gotten Harry tucked into his makeshift bed, a gratuitous dose of painkillers now spreading languidly through his system, Niall made his way about the living area, switching out the lights. He caught sight of the microwave clock in his kitchen as he threw away the last of the soiled cloths. 5:14 a.m. He’d been awake for almost 24 hours. The sun would be rising soon, and sleep tugged at his eyelids as he reentered the living room.

Harry was like a different person when he wasn’t wearing the mask. Seeing him like this — with ruffled hair, eyelashes fluttering nervously in his sleep, clutching blankets to his chest, looking so unlike the man Niall had seen in taking down the biggest bullies in the city in the papers and on the news every other day — it made Niall wonder what his and Harry’s lives would be like if they’d met in some other universe. A universe where Niall was a nurse in a small town hospital, somewhere far from the city, and Harry was an English teacher or a real estate agent or a florist…

_Stop._

Niall had let his mind wander into those places before, and as calming as it was at times, it made the jump back into reality much harder than it needed to be. Best keep away from that nonexistent world altogether. Thinking about it would only make it hurt more. And, once again, he reasoned that Harry was hurting enough for the both of them right now.

Niall moved toward the end table lamp, and reached down to brush bangs off of Harry’s forehead before switching off the light and heading into his bedroom. 

Though they’d been gloved, his hands felt sticky, and though his t-shirt appeared to have escaped any staining in the midst of his playing doctor, he felt like it could do with a wash. And he could probably use a shower.   


End file.
